Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: notebook, extended, battery | Themes: Laptops and Notebooks
6. Price
Many manufacturers will give you a discount when you buy an extended battery at the time of your notebook purchase. HP has been known to knock 20% off the price of the battery if you buy a spare one with your notebook purchase.
No discount? That’s okay, do the math: if that 12-cell sells for $150 and the six-cell sells for $130, guess which one gives you the best bang for the buck? If you can find coupons that give you a discount, you can save a lot. HP, Dell, Sony, and Lenovo regularly offer coupons good for accessories and notebook purchases. If you are interested in finding these coupons, sites such as livecouponcodes.com and notebookreview.com are useful sources.
One other thing you can do is surf the Web and compare prices. Even if your battery is available direct from the manufacturer, you might just find it cheaper from an alternative online retailer or an authorized reseller. Doing a Google search using the part number shown on the battery provides a list of retailers from which you can choose, with pricing included.
One thing I would certainly not recommend is buying batteries that are used, even if the savings are substantial. It’s difficult to know what condition that battery may be in. You don’t want to end up with a dead paperweight, or worse, a battery that was on a recent recall list that could potentially damage your equipment. Always buy batteries that come with the full manufacturer's warranty in the event you encounter issues and need a replacement later on.
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There aren't any options in the bios so is there software to undervolt my notebook's CPU?
They rate Amp-hours per cell. I.e. 2.2amp hours is only for one cell of a multi-cell battery? Confusing.
w4ffles: I use RMClock myself (there should be a free version online). It lets you set profiles so you can specify the maximum speed and voltage of your CPU (and various other levels depending on CPu usage). I use it to underclock and undervolt my desktop when not in use, but to crank the CPU up to max when doing heavy loads (which the application detects automatically and adjusts on the fly).
It can take a learning curve to use, but even the free version is very powerful.
Just something to point out, DDR3 is a power saving component in notebooks right now since it runs at a lower Voltage than DDR2. The difference isn't particularly significant, but DDR3 will give you maybe 5-10% more runtime.
Most people think of DDR3 as a perfomance increase, but with the limited frequencies of current soDIMMs, DDR3 for laptops is only on par with current DDR2 notebook RAM, if that.
My Compaq V5000 is still going strong after 5 years. I chose to go with Sempron and the matte screen (I planned to work outside and the glossy was brighter by default). Also got the 12 cell. I play Starcraft, Diablo 2 so the ati 200M worked perfectly, and then work related stuff (lasts about 6 hours watching downloaded media).
Great article, these were the things I considered when choosing components for my laptop, as I never knew when I would be close to an outlet.
andetghddn -
P.S. The v5000 laptop also cost about $450 direct from hp.
They rate Amp-hours per cell. I.e. 2.2amp hours is only for one cell of a multi-cell battery? Confusing.w4ffles: I use RMClock myself (there should be a free version online). It lets you set profiles so you can specify the maximum speed and voltage of your CPU (and various other levels depending on CPu usage). I use it to underclock and undervolt my desktop when not in use, but to crank the CPU up to max when doing heavy loads (which the application detects automatically and adjusts on the fly).It can take a learning curve to use, but even the free version is very powerful.
RMClock is the defacto software in use on notebooks at the moment, and what I would recommend. While I don't want to get into a full-blown guide here, it is also important to stress the CPU while testing your voltages before you really play with RMClock. It does take some learning, but anyone with the skills can do it.
Cool - now I can get a 30% off coupon at HP. Nice article!
I always enjoy having a laptop battery that doesn't start a fire.
I have a busniess notebook for work and aside from the programs I use everyday, don't know that much about computers. The biggest thing for me with buying an extended battery was the price. HP wanted a boat load for it, which is really a rip off. I checked different site for about 2 1/2 days and ended up getting one from NoteBatt.com for like half or something close to it. Couple of other sites were the same way. It's just nuts to think that other companies are selling pretty much the same battery for much less. Oh, and it has been completely bug free since I got it, something HP told me would not happen.
Even with 30% off coupon I think HP batteries are very expensive. I also was scared about fire when I started looking for a new battery for my HP and I found a very high quality batteries at www.newpcbattery.com. I chose that site because battery manufacturer located in USA, not in China.